What's the difference between a tag and a label?
A tag is a single keyword or phrase that describes the topic, theme, or subject of a post. You can add as many tags as you want, and so can other community members. For example, in a post about a mouse, you might add these tags: mouse, USB mouse, optical mouse, wireless, DPI.
Labels are used within a community to help categorize questions, blogs, ideas, documents that you write based on the themes or content in your post.
Unlike tags, labels are created by the Community Admin for consistency. When available, posts must have labels applied from a predefined list for the board in which the content appears. Tags are more freeform and can be created by authors.
Using Tags
You can tag your content in two ways:
When you create a post, enter your tags in the field for Tags.
You can also add tags after you publish your post by selecting Add tag at the bottom of your content.
To add a tag to other member's posts:
- Navigate to an interesting post or comment.
- Click Add tags and type your tags (separated by commas).
- Click Add.
If you do not see the option to add tags to a post, the feature may have been disabled for the post. You have the option to select whether you want community members to be able to add tags to a post.
Tag Clouds
A tag cloud displays tags used frequently within the community or within an area of the community. The more frequently a tag is used, the larger it appears in the tag cloud. By looking at a tag cloud, you can get a sense of what the hot topics are in an area.
You can find messages you've tagged by visiting your profile and clicking the tag. You can also click on a tag on any cloud and look at the Most Tagged section.
Using Labels
To add a label:
- Navigate to the post you authored.
- Open the post to edit it.
- In the Labels field, start typing the label or choose one from the list. If you add multiple labels, you must separate them with commas.
Only administrators can create new predefined labels or edit the label list. When required, members must apply a label when submitting posts to help organize and categorize content.
When you subscribe to a label, you will be notified by email when a new post is created with the label.
To subscribe to a label:
- From a particular post with a label, click on the label to filter by that label. You can also do this from the labels component.
- Click Subscribe.
Note: You can configure your subscription settings under My Settings > Subscriptions and Notifications > My Subscriptions and My Settings > Subscriptions and Notifications > Notification Settings.
Labels are applied at the board level. Thus, predefined labels and subscriptions to labels exist only at the board at which they are applied. For example, if you subscribe to a label named 'contest' at board 1, it will not automatically subscribe you to an identically named label at board 2. You will have to subscribe twice, once at each board. This also applies if you add a labels component to your page to display the most popular labels, these are also designed to work at board level.
